No challenges to Harrison's election bid for sheriff

WOODSTOCK – The deadline to challenge Jim Harrison’s candidacy for McHenry County sheriff came and went with no objections filed.

A challenge was expected from Harrison’s opponent, Bill Prim, but Prim said he only found minor clerical errors and signatures problems in a few cases.

“We took a cursory look; we didn’t see anything that would warrant circumventing the electoral process or denying voters the right to have an election,” Prim said.

The men are looking to replace Sheriff Keith Nygren, who has held the office since 1997 and decided not to seek re-election this year.

Harrison on June 23 filed about 9,500 signatures to give Prim a general election challenge this fall. Harrison needed at least 6,728 signatures but no more than 10,764. In other words, he needed between 5 and 8 percent of the votes cast in the November 2012 election.

Harrison couldn’t immediately be reached for this article.

A Woodstock-based attorney and former sheriff’s deputy, Harrison said he is a candidate not beholden to other local politicians. As an independent candidate, he’s hoping a win would change the political landscape in McHenry County.

Prim, a retired Des Plaines police commander, won the March 18 primary election with backing from State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. He scored a razor-thin victory over Undersheriff Andrew Zinke, who not only had the support of his longtime boss, but many in the Republican establishment.

Prim ran on the platform as the candidate who can reform the office and repair a tattered relationship between the sheriff’s and state’s attorney’s offices.

While many longtime party leaders supported Zinke, many of Prim’s supporters have since been newly elected into positions of leadership within the Republican Party in McHenry County.